Taft is a ghost town

Ghost town

A ghost town is an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters...

 in Mineral County

Mineral County, Montana

-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 3,884 people, 1,584 households, and 1,067 families residing in the county. The population density was 3 people per square mile . There were 1,961 housing units at an average density of 2 per square mile...

, Montana

Montana

Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Located in the Bitterroot Range

Bitterroot Range

The Bitterroot Range runs along the border of Montana and Idaho in the northwestern United States. The range spans an area of 62,736 square kilometers  and is named after the bitterroot , a small pink flower that is the state flower of Montana.- History :In 1805, the Corps of Discovery,...

 near the Idaho

Idaho

Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....

 border. It was a thriving railroad town circa 1908, named after William H. Taft (before he became president of the US in 1908) after he visited the nameless town in 1907.

The town was founded when the Chicago, Milwaukee & Pacific Railroad

Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad

The Milwaukee Road, officially the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad , was a Class I railroad that operated in the Midwest and Northwest of the United States from 1847 until its merger into the Soo Line Railroad on January 1, 1986. The company went through several official names...

 built its Pacific Coast

Pacific Coast

A country's Pacific coast is the part of its coast bordering the Pacific Ocean.-The Americas:Countries on the western side of the Americas have a Pacific coast as their western border.* Geography of Canada* Geography of Chile* Geography of Colombia...

 expansion and had to bore an 8,300 foot tunnel through the mountains near its site. After the St. Paul Pass tunnel was finished the town died out and was finally burned down in the winter of 1909-1910.

Taft burned to the ground on August 20, 1910 during "The Big Burn

Great Fire of 1910

The Great Fire of 1910 was a wildfire which burned about three million acres in northeast Washington, northern Idaho , and western Montana...

" - a wildfire fed by Palouser winds (see "The Big Burn" by Timothy Egan. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, 2009.)

Today on Interstate 90

Interstate 90

Interstate 90 is the longest Interstate Highway in the United States at . It is the northernmost coast-to-coast interstate, and parallels US 20 for the most part. Its western terminus is in Seattle, at Edgar Martinez Drive S. near Safeco Field and CenturyLink Field, and its eastern terminus is in...

the site is noted by an exit marked Taft Area.